I have never had a traumatic experience in the water. I know how to swim.

To be more specific, I dread drowning. It is the worst and most torturous way to go (to me).

I always found this strange. I couldn’t pull the sting, follow it, and find the stem of this irrational fear.

My grandmother passed away when I was young. But occasionally, some of her stories resurface in my conscious collection of random thoughts.

Her brother drowned in a river, they never found his body. He was washed away by aggressive thrashes of wild water. Vanished. Left my then-young grandmother in mourning with no prospect of closure.

Fears get passed down to us through DNA, or so I have heard. Then maybe there’s the answer. My grandmother moved on, got married, and had children, but her lingering terror of deep rivers was gifted to me.

Maybe that’s why looking at the ocean and being on the beach engulfs me with serenity.

In a way, I feel like I am connected to her. She is not with us, but a very real part of her still lives in me.

Yes, it is uneasy to have irrational fears that you don’t understand. On the other hand, it is astonishing that the very feelings that she had, are embedded in me. Without me even trying. I only inhibit an independent part of her, that stands on its own, and lives in my mind, my body, and my heart every day.

It’s not just blood and flesh, it’s an intangible feeling. It’s private to me, no one can see it or touch it.

I can exclusively see the world through her eyes for just a second. As if, she is looking at the world and tugging at my heart.

Another great post. Coincidently I’m just in the middle of writing the complete opposite of this (about my love of the sea) but I have however inherited a fear of flying, something that, as a small child, I was never scared of but after watching my dads fear of flying over the years, somehow I have now adopted too without any choice in the matter! I find it interesting how these thoughts can be transferred